


One Day Is All It Takes

by geckoholic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-31
Updated: 2011-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Suddenly, he feels as if he’s being offered a journey back in time, not exactly fixing something that went wrong, but getting to take an opportunity he'd thought was lost forever.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Day Is All It Takes

**Author's Note:**

> For feathertofly. Prompts used were "weather centric/kissing in the rain" and the song How Lucky We Are. Also, this was started way before the two final episodes of S6 aired and I don't think it would've worked if I'd edited it accordingly, so it's somewhat AU now. 
> 
> Beta'd by redbells. Thank you so much! ♥ 
> 
> Title is from "How Lucky We Are" by Meiko.

They meet again in a park, of all places. One where he sits on a bench, hands in his pockets and just watching... everything and nothing in particular. A world that's still whole, maybe. Whole and beautiful and peaceful in parts, that still has parks where people can take a Sunday stroll in and playgrounds children play at unbothered.

A world that’s here because he saved it.

Sometimes he just needs this, to remind himself of the fact that in the end, it was all worth it. That everything he and Dean sacrificed resulted in a world that's still turning.

And it's not like he's got anything better to do right now. They're between gigs, and Dean's off visiting Ben. He’s taken to doing that every so often, mainly because Ben just kept insisting until Dean and Lisa came to some kind of understanding that it might just be easier to let the kid have it. For reasons Dean doesn't get but Sam understands all too well, Ben chose Dean as his father, and he's not giving an _inch_ on the matter. It’s the kind of pigheadedness that, to Sam, only showcases how much of an influence Dean really had on him.

Sam came along the first few times, but he soon asked Dean to just go alone. Not that he doesn't want to see Ben, but Lisa still looks at him like he personally grabbed Dean by the shoulders and dragged him away from her. Which, from what he allows himself to remember, might not be too far off from the truth.

So he finds himself sitting alone in a park on a sunny Sunday morning, alternately lost in his thoughts and trying not to think at all.

Until a frisbee hits his chin.

  
***

  
Sam doesn't recognize her at first. It's been such a long time, and in his defense, he’s really had a lot on his mind in the years since they first met.

She doesn't recognize him either. Not right away.

When she comes running, apologizing profusely for hitting him with the toy, she's too busy hovering and asking him if he’s okay to really look at him. He busies himself by grappling around for the toy so he doesn't have to talk to her directly, reassuring her that it didn't hurt at all.

People looking at him, just him, has made his skin crawl since he's been back upstairs.

Their hands meet while they're both feeling around on the ground under the bench for the frisbee, and when she looks up to him, she says his name.

"Sam."

It's not a question, and the fact that there's someone here who recognizes him makes him instantly uneasy. It always does, these days, because he doesn't know whether or not it'll be someone from the past he remembers, or someone from the year he's forgotten. Had to forget.

He forces himself to look up, stares at her and searches her face for clues, for accusations or shock.

There isn't either. She's smiling.

And then it dawns to him, too. "Sarah,” he says. "Sarah Blake".

  
***

  
She's come a long way since the first time they met. Big falling-out with her dad, several jobs, almost as many towns, she's divorced. And all she's got to show for it now is a dog her ex bought her as a puppy, she says, chuckling. But she's doing good now, she tells him, that was three towns and a boyfriend ago.

Sam's grateful that she doesn't ask about him – knows better than to do that, probably – and listens to her chattering away about her life nowadays and her life back then and how she doesn't regret a thing.

"Except one." Her eyes turn soft when she says that, and a little sad, sadder than during most of their conversation so far. He gets it, knows this is about him, and that it's an opening. But he doesn't know how to react, just cocks his head to the side and 'hms', and the moment passes.

After a while - Sam honestly doesn't know how long they just sit there on the bench, him listening and her talking, time has become so unimportant to him - it starts to drizzle. He doesn't mind, but she calls for her dog, makes to get up, and so he follows along. They’re not in a hurry, though, they wander through the rain rather than run from it. It's warm and a little misty and everything smells like rain and grass, and when she stops to point out a sculpture on the edge of the park, he doesn't think twice, doesn't let another moment fly by unused.

He lays a finger to her jaw, turns her face gently towards him, and kisses her.

  
***

  
Neither of them says a single word on the way to the motel - a different one than where he's staying with Dean, and it doesn't even occur to him until long after they checked in to wonder why they didn't just go to her place - and she doesn't comment on it when Sam calls Dean to tell him he won't come in today, he's gonna sleep someplace else.

Dean's as giddy about it as he was when Sam and Sarah met for the first time, honestly excited on Sam's behalf, and even the 'that's my boy' is true to the script. No doubt he's smiling brightly when they hang up, and something inside of Sam feels sorry that he doesn't see get to see that. There's no lack of Dean's happy faces anymore, like it used to be for a while, but Sam's still not ever going to get enough of the sight.

Sarah excuses herself then, to bring home the dog as she says and that's a perfectly good reason to go, but Sam can't help but thinking she's giving herself an out. While she's gone, he flops down on the bed and watches TV without really paying attention to what's on, and he half-expects her not to come back.

But she does. When she enters the room again, she's out of breath as if she were rushing to get back, smiling brightly. He smiles back. He means it, too, his heart making a leap like it hasn't in a long time. Suddenly, he feels as if he’s being offered a journey back in time, not exactly fixing something that went wrong, but getting to take an opportunity he'd thought was lost forever.

He gets up from the bed, standing as she closes the distance between them, and they fall back onto the mattress when their bodies meet.

If it wasn't so ridiculous a thought, he'd say that he got a little weak in the knees right there. Lost his footing.

They kiss, in earnest this time, long and deep and a little messier than he would've pegged her for being into. She pulls at his clothes, fingertips touching skin, and how can it be that he'd forgotten how good that feels?

  
***

  
The next morning, he dresses while she's still asleep. He's not enough of an asshole to quietly hit the road, shakes her awake before he leaves. To kiss her once more, say goodbye, but he's eager to get away and sure she senses that.

Sarah doesn't get up when he walks out of the room, lets the door fall shut behind him, she just turns around in the sheets to spread out on the now empty bed and goes back to sleep.

On his way out, Sam pays for the room and orders breakfast to be brought to her room an hour later.

  
***

  
Dean's grinning conspiratorially and a little dirty when Sam gets back, makes Sam sit down for 'all the details' before he's even done shrugging out of his jacket. And Sam indulges him, answers all his questions truthfully; it's not like they have boundaries anymore, and Dean's cut back on the hook-ups considerably after Lisa.

All questions but one. "Just some chick, Dean, really. I don't even remember her name."

"I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be proud or appalled," Dean says, knocking Sam’s shoulder, still grinning like a loon. Or like a father who just bought his son his first beer, Sam thinks, even though it’s technically far from the first.

Once Dean's little interview is over and done with, they get packing and hightail it out of town; Dean's found them a gig, and he wants to get there before nightfall. They're almost out of the state when Sam remembers that he didn't ask for Sarah's phone number or if she even still has the same last name after having been married.

It doesn't matter. He wouldn't call anyway.


End file.
